Wetting characteristics of micro-nanorough substrates of aluminum and smooth silicon substrates have been studied and compared by depositing hydrocarbon and fluorinated-hydrocarbon coatings via plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) technique using a mixture of Ar, CH4 and C2F6 gases. The water contact angles on the hydrocarbon and fluorinated-hydrocarbon coatings deposited on silicon substrates were found to be 72 degrees and 105 degrees, respectively. However, the micro-nanorough aluminum substrates demonstrated superhydrophobic properties upon coatings with fluorinated-hydrocarbon providing a water contact angle of similar to 165 degrees and contact angle hysteresis below 2 degrees with water drops rolling off from those surfaces while the same substrates showed contact angle of 135 degrees with water drops sticking on those surfaces. The superhydrophobic properties is due to the high fluorine content in the fluorinated-hydrocarbon coatings of similar to 36 at.%, as investigated by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS), by lowering the surface energy of the micro-nanorough aluminum substrates. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.